Well now, I have obviously not been keeping up with MP3 palyers as the last one I had came with a 32MB MMC card (woohoo).

Having seen a merchandiser carrying one which was compact (barely bigger than a jumpdrive), operated on one AAA battery, and plugged directly into a usb port just like a jumpdrive, well, I wanted one.

I have been looking at some models on Amazon, and the SanDisk Sansa looks like it would fit those requirements as listed above. I was wondering, however, what MP3 players some of the members of the board have and what you would recommend from experience.

Katie had one of the old iPod Shuffles that looked like a big USB drive. Unfortunately, she was doing an update lately (including firmware, it appears) and Andy ran up to her and bumped the laptop hard. The iPod is no longer recognized as a valid USB device by any computer we have tried - even a Mac.

Since her birthday was coming up, I ordered her one of the new Shuffles as a replacement. It is about the size of a large postage stamp and comes with an integrated clip. Her battery life is more than 6 hours (it is supposed to get 12, but she has not used it longer than that yet). If you are looking for something with no bells or whistles, then I can say that Katie loves the new iPod Shuffle.

Menard, if you are considering a Sansa, then you might want to see about going to woot.com today. They have a 1GB model for 29.99.

I've had a few different MP3 players over the years. The first was a iRock 8mb model with flash memory about 8 years ago. It was when MP3 players first came out.

Then I had a 256MB no name model that held one AAA battery and worked like a flash drive, much like you mentioned in your initial post. I ended up giving it to my father who still uses it now.

I then went to a Dell Digital Jukebox (Dell DJ) which was a 15GB model. Loved it to death, and I still have it and it works perfectly to this day.

Just within the last two months, I switched to a 30GB 5th Generation Ipod which is the Ipod that plays videos. I love it. I can rip a DVD onto it, and still have a ton of music. It's much thinner than the Dell DJ and it was well worth the $175 I paid directly from Apple. It's a refurb but I've not noticed any cosmetic or hardware problems with it.

My wife has an original Ipod Shuffle, a 512MB model. She won it for selling the most food one night as part of a contest when she worked at the local Outback. It's a great little player, considering it doesn't have a screen.

Andrew did mention the new clip on Shuffles, which are great. They're everything that was awesome about the original, but SO much smaller. I'd love to have one as a backup player.

In the end, it all depends on what you're looking for. I needed a portable media player to take to work with me when working nightshifts, and the 5G Ipod works great for that.

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__________________________________________________________"The greatest medicine in the world is human laughter. And the worst medicine is zombie laughter." -- Jack Handey

A bald man named Savalas visited me last night in a dream. I think it was a Telly vision.

I use the Sony NW-HD1 hard disc player.It's pretty handy and uses the ATRAC format which allows it to store up to something like 14,000 songs.It's small, lightweight, has an insanely long battery life and is about the size of a deck of cards.It comes with Sony's Sonicstage digital music manager.

Yes, most songs on the average Ipod are MP3. I believe Jobs said recently that almost 80% or so of the music on users' Ipods are MP3s. But, if you download music from ITunes, then they are going to be in the AAC format which means they will not work on a regular MP3 player. The same goes for the Sony Atrac which was mentioned. That is a proprietary format and the Sony players will not play anything but that format.

Concerning the AAC format, Jobs is slowly trying to move away from that type of DRM (Digital Rights Management). Apple recently signed on with EMI to offer EMI's library without any type of DRM. That means you download the song from ITunes and put it on any MP3 player. Pretty good idea. At the moment, I believe that you can only play AAC encoded songs on something like 2 computers at your home and only on one or two portable devices (Ipods).

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__________________________________________________________"The greatest medicine in the world is human laughter. And the worst medicine is zombie laughter." -- Jack Handey

A bald man named Savalas visited me last night in a dream. I think it was a Telly vision.

I did want one that would play MP3s directly and not require any conversion to a proprietary format. I am looking to stay around $30 or less for now and am considering the Sansa Skaboi pointed out, but will consider any other recommendations as well.

I've been reading reviews and looking at prices; so far nothing comes even close to comparing to the woot deal. Most items would usually have a certain level of ratings on Amazon, often predictable by manufacturer, but MP3 players, from what I have read, other than Sandisk and Apple, don't have too many that rate above three stars average. Although the Sansa uses a cable (was looking for a direct connection), ah who cares; at $30 bucks with a tuner and SD slot, it can't be beat.